


Evolution (We're Not Broken Just Bent, And We Can Learn To Love Again)

by CallToMuster



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Daisy is a good bro, F/M, Gen, Hurt Phil Coulson, Hurt/Comfort, Phil needs therapy, Post-Episode: s03e10 Maveth, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 12:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6116626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallToMuster/pseuds/CallToMuster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The man who had been their leader for so long, and who had always been so passionate, now had all the spark snuffed out of him. Phil Coulson had thrown all his wood onto the fire to take down Ward, and now it had burned out brightly and quickly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Evolution (We're Not Broken Just Bent, And We Can Learn To Love Again)

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to stepantrofimovic, who (when I emailed them in early December asking for help) gave me tons of constructive criticism! 
> 
> Yeah, I started this a couple months ago, forgot it, then finished it all last night. Hehe.

Daisy didn’t know the Phil Coulson that existed before the Battle of New York, but she did know the one that existed after it. And the one that existed after the whole Hydra debacle. And the one that was the new Director of SHIELD. And the one after his hand was cut off. And the one when he was dating Rosalind. And she knew the one that was now, after Ward brutally murdered her in front of Phil. Phil Coulson evolved after traumatic events, like an Inhuman. Something horrible happened and the Phil that emerged was a new person. Sometimes the shifts were minute, sometimes they were drastic. 

 

From what Daisy understood, this is what happened when Rosalind was shot: Phil held her as she died, he got the call from Ward, he beat up a bunch of Hydra goons, he became focused. Focused on killing Ward. Focused to the point where he jumped out of a Quinjet into an alien portal after him.

 

And he only became more ruthless and driven as time went on. All Phil seemed to care about was Ward’s destruction; he had to be cajoled to sleep or eat or do anything normal humans needed to do to survive. His waking moments were spent concocting plans, endless plans, of how best to murder Grant Ward. Which was why Daisy expected him to be lost once he finally did it. And she was right.

 

After Coulson killed Ward, it was like he had used up all of his motivation. Suddenly he was like an empty shell; sure, he did missions and things like that, but his heart was never in any of it. Even once they were back on base or Zephyr One, he was still blank. That was the main reason why Mack was still director. It was a little weird to see Coulson being the one taking orders instead of giving them, and Daisy knew Mack felt the same, but if Coulson thought that he didn’t show it. He never talked more than was necessary, keeping his answers to mainly yes or no. It was hurting the team a little. The man who had been their leader for so long, and who had always been so passionate, now had all the spark snuffed out of him. Coulson had thrown all his wood onto the fire, and now it had burned out brightly and quickly. 

 

Frankly, it was unnerving, and no one really succeeded in helping him. It seemed like Phil Coulson, who had seen and been through so much, had finally… snapped. (Maybe broken was a better word.) And no one blamed the man. After all he had happened to him, any normal man would’ve been broken far before this. (Truthfully, Daisy suspected it began with TAHITI. Learning you begged for death until your voice was hoarse but your best friend refused to grant your wish knocked you off kilter a little bit. Alright, probably a lot.) 

 

This particular day, the team was having a movie night. Hunter and Bobbi had procured burgers, fries, and a DVD copy of  _ The Princess Bride _ from somewhere. Everyone assembled at 6 o’clock and was unwrapping their dinners in front of the TV when Daisy realized Phil wasn’t there. 

 

She voiced her concern. “Hey, shouldn’t we go get Coulson?” 

 

Everyone else exchanged uneasy looks.

 

“I don’t think he wants to come, mate.” Hunter said haltingly after a couple seconds silence had passed. The others nodded their agreement. 

 

Daisy still felt bad. “I’ll just go let him know this is happening.” She set down her burger and left the room, the weight of the others’ stares on her back.

 

Coulson’s quarters were in the far corner of the Playground, and Daisy hadn’t been there too often: she mostly interacted with Phil in the public spaces. Still, she knew where they were, and it didn’t take long before she was standing in front of his door. Wanting to be polite, Daisy knocked, albeit a little hesitantly.

 

No answer. She knocked again, this time louder and with more force.

 

“Coulson?” Nothing still. An uneasy pit formed in her stomach as her mind immediately jumped to the worst. Had there been an accident? Was Coulson injured? She needed to check. “Coulson, if you don’t open the door in the next ten seconds, I’m blasting it down myself.”

 

No response. Daisy mentally counted back from ten, then stuck her hand out and focused. The bolts on the door shook and fell loose, leaving it swinging open. Cautiously, she crept inside.

 

Phil was sitting on the bed, staring at something he had pinched between his fingers. Daisy let out a breath, dizzy with relief. Phil Coulson wasn’t careless by any means, but with how…  _ different _ he’s been acting lately, nothing was certain. 

 

“Phil?” Slowly, ever so slowly, she moves towards the man. She knows better than ever not to startle him when he’s like this. Once, he’d been standing in a hallway unmoving, so Daisy had walked up behind him and placed her hand on his back, intending to ask about his wellbeing. Too late she realized his state of mind and the fact that she touched him where he had been stabbed. Before she knew what was happening, she found herself on the ground with a gun pointed square at her face. It took him a couple seconds to snap out of it then, and she’d lied there, frozen until he did. Now though, he’s still locked in whatever’s going on inside his head. 

 

“Coulson?” Daisy’s close enough now to make out the thing in his hands. It’s an worn out old-fashioned book of matches with the words “Half Moon Pub” written on it. 

 

“Phil?” Finally Phil raises his head. “We’ve got burgers and a mo-” Daisy cut off when she saw his shoulders shaking. Coulson’s eyes were now wide and skittish, like a cornered animal. He was heaving in huge breaths that seemed to be caught in his throat. 

 

It was heartbreaking to watch.

 

Daisy kneels in front of him and raises her arms to touch his shoulders, then stops inches away from him. “Phil, I’m going to touch your shoulders now, okay?”

 

A nod, fast and jerky.

 

Daisy kept up a steady stream of babble. “It’s Tuesday, Phil, you’re in your room at the Playground. You’re safe Phil, no one is going to hurt you right now.” 

 

Slowly,  _ too  _ slowly, Phil’s breath returned to what could be considered a normal pace. He was shaking slightly still, but that was better than before. Daisy waited in silence. Phil seemed content just to sit there for a while, so she let him. 

 

When Daisy looked through his file right before the whole Hydra thing happened, she learned a few things. One: Phil’s dad died when he was young. Daisy once heard a quote that said, “The only thing worse than having no hope at all is having it taken away.” To her, the difference is night and day. It’s jumping out of an airplane or having the floor drop out from under you and you plummet to your death. Daisy never had a family in the traditional sense. Coulson’s was taken away. She read in the files that his mother entered a deep depression after her husband’s death and Phil basically ran the household starting from age nine. 

 

Second: Phil was recruited to SHIELD when he was in college (as a history major, which made Daisy laugh a little - it was very fitting) and had been working ever since. This means that he’s been in SHIELD in one form or another for about  _ 30 years _ . Daisy wasn’t even that old yet. Her point was that SHIELD was all adult Coulson had ever known, and he believed in it implicitly. “Trust the system.” She remembered the words he used to speak to her. Coulson trusted the system for sure, and then it used methods that were borderline torturous to bring the man back to life against his express wishes.

 

“Roz and I, we were cut from the same cloth.” Phil’s voice broke the stillness. Daisy’s head snapped to face him. She waited for him to continue. “We’d both devoted our lives to a cause, both were the directors of our respective agencies.” 

 

“Both of us have trust issues.” He continued, words flowing easier now. “So we just… Clicked. Understood each other. It’s not easy being green.” A wry smile flitted past Coulson’s face, gone in an instant.

 

“I… I tried loving someone outside of SHIELD, outside of the inner world you and I live in. That just ended with Audrey having a broken heart and thinking I was dead. So this time I really thought it might work. And then, well, Ward happened.”

 

“Roz was shot in the neck mid sentence, we were eating dinner. Just “ _ shink!” _ and the glass in the was shattered and she was clutching her neck and there was blood pouring out between her fingers, so much blood. I told her to breath with me but it was too late. And then Ward called and gloated, told me it was just what I had done to Kara.” Phil looked at Daisy then. “Did I get Rosalind killed?” 

 

“Wha- no!” She shook her head vehemently. “No. Ward killed Rosalind, Phil. You had nothing to do with it.”

 

Coulson looked at her a moment, measured the truth in her face, then moved on. “Ward sent some Hydra agents to finish me off, but I took them out on autopilot; I don’t really remember it. I took the Walk of Shame back on base - yeah, I saw all the looks I was getting. In my office, I found the matchbook.”

 

He held up said matchbook in his hands. Daisy understood from the context that the matchbook had some significance, but Phil didn’t go into further detail as to what it was or why it was important.

 

“Everything sharpened for me. It was hazy before, then the fog lifted and my focus sharpened on  _ Ward _ . I… I got a little out of hand. I know that. Kidnapping Thomas Ward was not okay. Neither was risking the lives of Bobbi and Hunter to jump a couple hundred feet in the air out of a Quinjet into a four-by-four alien portal. But at the time it seemed like the most logical thing in the world. And then..”

 

Phil trailed off. 

 

“And then Maveth happened. I killed Ward in cold blood, Daisy. I had him down, defeated, at my mercy, and I crushed his ribcage.” He took a deep breath. “I would not have done that a few years ago.”

 

Coulson looked conflicted, emotions rolling across his face like waves. “Ward deserved to die, yes. But… Not like that. Not like that.” 

 

Daisy placed her hand on his as she had when he was interrogating her about Ward. It seemed more effective now. Phil grabbed ahold of it like it was a lifesaver and he was drowning. Tears came slowly at first, one after another, then all at once and Phil was crying and she was holding him as he did so. 

 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Phil said again and again, and Daisy understood that he wasn’t just talking about Ward, but about everything he’d done wrong in the past.

 

“It’s okay.” Daisy repeated for him. Because it was. She wouldn’t go back and change anything if she had the chance. 

  
  


EPILOGUE

 

It got better after that, easier, but it took time. This change would be slow and not sudden. Phil made more of an effort to participate in the group. It took a little nudging and cajoling, but hey, it worked out in the end! He gave Mack advice and trained with the rest of them, getting more back into the tactical side of things. Daisy once walked in on Hunter and Phil drinking beers and joking together. It was a nice sight to see.

  
There was a long road ahead, but they’d get through it. Just take a deep breath and power through. 

**Author's Note:**

> Not really sure how this one turned out. Your thoughts?


End file.
